Re: Merry Christmas

Mary Fisher wrote:
I have seen
photos of Jacob sires in a couple of breeding flocks, for instance,
which were awful representatives of the breed.

Are Jacobs rare breeds? I didn't think so.

They were
and there are plenty of them in RBST parks.
If the aim of RBST parks is to educate present and future breeders then
using substandard stock when there are plenty of decent stocks around is a
poor show. In fact the response others, who have much more experience than
I, has been to call it irresponsible.


I agree, but was that done by the RBST? Individuals are free to do
what they want.

This was a RBST approved and heralded park


Some of the RBST breeders do not consider that the meat and / or wool
qualities of their sheep are important.

Individuals are free to do what they want. That doesn't mean that
RBST is at fault.

It does if they approve the practises and do nothing to educate their most
active members out of this philosphy
Its from RBST that the worst of this comes when you hear the advice some
folks are given

I wish our society was anywhere near the quality of the likes of
that of Germany and the US and a few other parts of Europe. I really
pains me to say that.

Well, do something about it :-)

We are in our small way -- our resources prevent any more. I wish it were
different.


Well, there's the rub. We have what we have and it's better than
nothing.

Is it ?
I would venture to suggest that dumbing the genetics down to the lowest
common denominator is actually doing more harm. I am not alone in this view.


There are really great breeders amonst the membership but the
movement as a whole in this country could learn a GREAT deal from
taking on board ideas and concepts from other countries.

RBST does do that.

They have done little. They have rather been of the opinion that their way
is best.
They lay down great claims but others actually give a great deal more on the
ground


Deciding what breeds are or are not rare is much less important than
having no concept about what constitutes good selection practises and
monitoring schemes

It's not fair to assume that because some members do what you think
they do we all do it.

Unfortunately up until recently there were too many people in high places
who had extremely poor judgement in this respect. They had influence and
have done much harm. Some of the valuable genetics we had in this country
has been lost by their actions, in all species.
The absence of decent records means its almost impossible to know how to
regain them.



The rarity of the usefulnes of the strains within the breeds would
show up very quickly with some decent recording

There is some excellent recording.

There is very little.
For example -- there is no production records, fertility records,
hatchability records, liveability records, table growth records for any of
the flock they used to have and herald as great poultry flocks. They did not
even have pictures of the birds to offer. Of several breeds the strains
kept no-one who was respected in the breed for over 50 years knew anything
of them, they were not recognised as strains of note at all.
Over the years they have rebuffed all offers of help and advice from highly
respected poultry people with decades of knowledge and experience and
enthusiasm. In the most recent times there is a renewed interest in poultry
but its highly flawed and overcome by the amount of work required to bring
all the other species back into some sort of order.

They have not a clue how many birds there are of any breed for goodness sake
There was a time not long ago when they were making a great deal of the
scarity of the Scots Grey -- only 120 in the whole country. Complete
cobblers!! Someone brought my attention to this and we decided that between
us we had nearly 80 floating about our respective corners of the world. And
knew of many more - good bad and indifferent. All they did was to encourage
paople to keep Scots Greys - except they did not suggest that these people
bred them. All this does is create a demand for birds to be bred - however -
to be kept as pets. This simply weakens the breed further - as good birds
are leaving the breeding flocks before they have been recorded for quality
[eggs fertility etc].
Keeping a bird as a pet does nothing to preserve it
Breeding hundreds without really strong selection and recording does nothing
to preserve it
Passing birds out to potential breeders without careful information about
selection and records does nothing to preserve it


Most of the birds I have seen pictures of in RBST places are definately in
the indifferent class, repeatedly I hear of disappointments. Birds that have
been bought from RBST parks have turned out to be impure but no-one was
interested in taking the birds back.
Some of the sheep and cattle folks have similar tales of woe.


Nothing's perfect.

But having some decent aspirations goes a long way to achieving something
useful
Replication for its own sake is not good breeding

--

regards
Jill Bowis

Pure bred utility chickens and ducks
Housing; Equipment, Books, Videos, Gifts
Herbaceous; Herb and Alpine nursery
Working Holidays in Scotland
http://www.kintaline.co.uk


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